That's What He Said
by Myrielle
Summary: What Owen said when the boys chose him over Claire. A short drabble about something I wish had been in the movie.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot. Everything else belongs to their respective creators, owners and producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: What Owen said when the boys chose him over Claire. A short drabble about something I wished had been in the movie.

 **THAT'S WHAT HE SAID**

The awkward silence that follows is resounding. The boys don't even realise the half of it, Owen thinks as he stares at Claire and she stares at him. They are so different and yet so alike. Her green eyes and slight cleft chin could have been mirror images of his except that hers are the colour of spring when it has come fully into its own and the dimple that marks the tip of her jawbone is a lot softer than his. Those are just where the least important similarities start.

Claire takes it with the stiff upper lip that he always knew she had and needed to survive in the corporate wilds. It's no big deal, the press of her mouth tells him. It's fine, her lowered lashes say as she looks down before looking up again at him. There is a faintly ironic smile lurking somewhere at the corner of her mouth which unbelievably still has more than a trace of lipstick.

So Owen decides that he has to say something.

Because Claire Dearing might have preached assets till the cows came home but he saw the wonder on her face and the tears in her eyes as they sat by a dying dinosaur to give it what little comfort they could.

Because she might have refused to evacuate the island and lost her temper by yelling at him and being sarcastic in a way that got under his skin when it shouldn't have (then again everything about Claire Dearing got under his skin, in good ways too) but he'd done the same thing as well by sweeping those plastic dinosaurs off the tech guy's desk. Stepping out of the lift, he told himself he had been an ass and then stopped to listen to the announcement that said all attractions north of the resort were closed. She was the Operations Manager and while she didn't make the call he wanted, she had made a pretty decent one.

Then there was the time when she looked like he had slapped her when he had called her out on the fact that she had no clue as to how old her nephews were. For a moment Owen thought she was going to snap at him again. But Claire had sucked it up and said, "Yes." She knew she deserved that. She had clutched her handphone until her knuckles were bone-white and muttered silent prayers she thought he couldn't see in the reflection of the window as he drove them out to look for her boys. He knew she loved them and that was all that mattered.

He knew she really loved them because in all his time on the island, Claire never looked less than formidable but she came damned near close to crying as she knelt in the dirt and held a smashed handphone with hands that shook so hard she should have dropped it. She looked like she was going to collapse until he pointed out to her that the boys had made it out. Owen didn't know what he would have done if they hadn't escaped, or how he could have helped Claire.

Her faith in him was touching, although she had clearly overestimated what the Navy could teach a man. His frustration at her refusal to go back melted away when she had fixed him with a smouldering glare, promptly unbuckled her belt and ripped her outer blouse open before tying the tail ends at the front and rolling up her sleeves to assume a pose that reminded him of Wonder Woman from those comics he used to read as a boy. It was so much hotter than it ought to have been and Owen was just glad that Claire had kept her eyes on his face and not any other part further down south because he couldn't see himself trying to explain or excuse that.

She may have been wearing silk and chiffon and scented lotion that made him want to bury his mouth against her neck and put his tongue to her skin, but her courage was iron-clad as they both huddled at the front of a disused jeep while a monster sniffed around for them and came so close that they could feel the warmth of its breath and smell the blood on its teeth. She had been holding his hand as much as he had been holding hers. She had the good sense to run in the right direction (he still couldn't believe he had run the wrong way) and when she had ignored his outstretched hand to bolt past him with the determination and focus of an Olympic sprinter (the fact that she was wearing high heels was enough to make him want to give her a medal), he had decided that Claire Dearing really was Wonder Woman.

She wasn't afraid to let him know she had been wrong. "Get ACU out here, real guns this time," she had instructed. He was in front leading the way so she would never know but he had smiled at those words.

The air might have been full of flying bullets, Dimorphodons and Pteranodons but she was desperate enough to climb onto a table and yell for her nephews because she knew they were close by and she was not going to lose them again. Everything he had shot out of the air had been on a collision course with her and Owen promised himself that nothing would get Claire on his watch.

Only he hadn't reckoned on the bloodthirsty Dimorphodon that had fixed him in its sights. The blow from behind had knocked him to the ground and the claws went past the leather of his vest. He rolled desperately, knowing that it wanted his neck. Then it tried to take off his face as he fought it, hands gripping and fingers almost slipping on tough scaly hide that felt like sandpaper burning his palms as it thrashed and lunged, its hot sour breath pouring down on him.

Then it cried out as Owen heard something heavy and solid smash into its skull. The dinosaur rolled out of his arms, as stunned as he was when he heard the sweet soft clips of the bullets that sang right over him and buried themselves into the creature. He turned and there was Claire, standing over him with the sun in her hair, burning red and white and triumphant. Owen had been unable to move until she reached down and hauled him to his feet.

So he kissed her, kissed her the way he'd never kissed any other woman before. Hot and sweet and desperate and no tongue because this was Claire and this was not the right time but goddamn it all, it blew his mind. She blew his mind by kissing him back and laying a hand on his shoulder that pretty much set him on fire.

And then she forgot about him when she set eyes on her nephews. Owen wondered if it would be the same when they had their kids. He figured it would be and then realised he didn't mind it one bit.

So when Zach and Gray say that they want to stay with him and not her, Owen knows he has to speak up.

"Boys, did you not see what your Aunt Claire did back there?"

They look at him, eyes round and wondering if he's going to tell them off.

So Owen looks at Claire to lessen the tension and more importantly, let her know he's speaking as much to her as he is to them. "She shot a dinosaur that tried to turn me into lizard buffet. If not for her, I wouldn't even be in this jeep with you guys. You don't know half of what she's done."

She knows what he's really saying, that he knows exactly what she has accomplished today and that he was wrong when he'd said she wouldn't last two minutes. "So, can we stay with you?" he asks her and the smile that splits her face makes his heart ache.

"I am never leaving you," she repeats and it hangs in the air like a promise he fully intends to hold her to.

Because Claire Dearing is a badass that he has every intention of having a second date with and if he plays his cards right, he would get to keep her forever.


End file.
